By ZAGAZOLA MAKAMA

Fifteen years ago, as gunfire echoed across Mallamfatori and fear swallowed the town whole, a young woman knelt quietly behind her home, her hands trembling as she dug into the sand.

Boko Haram fighters were advancing, and residents were fleeing in chaos. She had only moments to decide what to do with the small pouch of gold coins and jewelry, her only inheritance, the last legacy of her late mother.

In panic, she wrapped the items in cloth, whispered a prayer over them, and buried them deep beneath the soft soil. Then she ran leaving her home, her memories, and everything she owned behind.

For the first time in 15 years, the woman who asked to remain unnamed due to her security, stepped back into Mallamfatori, a community that had been emptied, battered and reclaimed from insurgents after years of conflict. The houses bore scars, the streets had changed, but she still remembered the spot where she knelt that night.

Yet doubt lingered. What if someone had found it? What if the shifting sands had swallowed it forever? What if there was nothing left?

Determined to try, she approached the Divisional Police Officer of Mallamfatori, asking for help to search for what she had lost. The request was unusual, the memory fragile, and the chance of success uncertain. Still, the officers agreed to help.

What followed was a painstaking and emotional search.

Guided only by her recollection of a tree stump that no longer existed and a corner of the house that had collapsed, the team combed through the area. They dug carefully, clearing debris and sand until, at last, a metallic glint broke through the earth.

Inside the recovered bundle were 22 pieces of gold coins and ornaments along with a gold bracelet and chain. The items, now worth several million, had remained untouched through years of conflict, displacement, and the harsh desert winds.

When the officers handed her the pouch, witnesses said she broke down in tears, tears not only of relief, but of remembrance. The gold was more than wealth; it was a living memory of her mother, a fragment of a life she had been forced to abandon.

The Commissioner of Police, CP Naziru Abdulmajid, praised the Mallamfatori Division for the recovery, describing the officers’ conduct as “a testament to integrity, professionalism and the values the Nigeria Police Force stands for.”

He said their honesty had restored hope at a time when many returnees were still struggling to find their footing after years of displacement.

For the woman, the gold represents something deeper than money.

“It feels like my past waited for me,” she told a relative. “Everything else was lost but this survived.”

Her return to Mallamfatori is part of a gradual wave of resettlement as security improves in the northern Borno border town. But her story of loss, return and an unexpected reunion with a piece of history has touched many across the state.

Update news